Pinak Dey, a resident of Lalabazar, South Surma, Sylhet, is a UK expatriate. He has come to the country for a month. Upon returning home, he had to face problems with his car.

At first, Pinak rented a private car. But after a while, he became fed up with the various demands and objections of the private car driver. Due to the driver's objections, he could not even move around as he wanted. Moreover, one seat of the car was also occupied by the driver.

To avoid this hassle, Pinak bought a new private car a fortnight ago. He said, "I bought the car to avoid the hassle. I will sell it when I leave. But it will cost me a loss of around 3 lakh taka."

Many people face such problems when traveling or spending time with relatives in Sylhet, known as the city of expatriates. On the other hand, tourists visiting Sylhet also want to travel around in their own way by car.

Four young people from Sylhet—Afzal Hossain Chowdhury, Enamul Hasan, Iftekhar Irad and UK expatriate Shibbir Ahmed—have come forward to meet the demands of expatriates and tourists.

Their 'UDrivebd', a Sylhet-based platform, has come up with an offer of hassle-free self-drive car rentals for long-drive lovers with the theme ‘The freedom to self-drive’.

It facilitates the clients to go out alone or along with their near and dear ones, driving a stylish and well-maintained car like Mercedes, Honda, Toyota, or Nissan available in its transportation pool towards the expected destinations without any hassle of hiring a driver.

This facility will be available only after completing registration and verification by fulfilling certain specified conditions. The fare is also relatively low—minimum 2,500 taka for 12 hours while the maximum amount is Tk 8,000.

UDrivebd would take an amount between Tk 5,000 and Tk 10,000 for security reasons, depending on the probable duration of hiring a car for self-drive.

UDrivebd, which began as a pilot in January this year, has already completed more than 500 trips. At least 70 customers are regularly renting cars.

UDrivebd started its formal journey on Wednesday (July 23) through a launching ceremony at the conference room of Grand Sylhet Hotel & Resort, a five-star guesthouse adjacent to Sylhet Osmani International Airport. 

At the beginning of the ceremony, a one-minute silence after recitation from the Quran was observed in memory of the victims of July 21 fighter jet crash into a school in Dhaka that left 33 people, mostly schoolchildren, dead.

In addition to the media personnel, heads of different travel and tourism-related institutions and social organisations attended the launching ceremony.

The programme ended with a ‘vehicle exhibition of the UDrivebd’s transportation pool and a test drive session’ held on the green parking ground in front of the Grand Sylhet Hotel & Resort.

Currently, UDrivebd has 16 vehicles. The company's goal is to increase that to 100 by the end of the year and complete 10,000 trips.

Afzal Hossain Chowdhury, co-founder of UDrivebd, said that many tourists and expatriates want to travel around in their own cars. They do not want to face the hassle of a driver. They also face problems due to the driver occupying a seat in the car. Considering all these, this initiative of providing driverless car rental has been taken.

He said, "Anyone can rent a self-drive car by completing the registration and verification process with a valid driving license and other relevant information."

Iftekhar Irad, another of the entrepreneurs, said that expatriates can rent cars from outside the country by contacting the Facebook page. The cars will be ready at the airport when they arrive in the country.

He said, "In addition to Sylhet, we are thinking of expanding our business to the capital Dhaka and Chittagong."

UDrivebd co-founder Enamul Hasan Khan told New Age that they would hire cars for their transportation pool from different individuals and institutions based on the B2B partnership process.

‘We would take cars from the owners in basis of a particular agreement and we would provide them with monthly payments against their vehicles. But, the management of the UDrivebd would be kept in our complete control,’ he added.

Responding to another query, Enamul said that they had no link to the globally operated car-sharing organisation UDrive.

Sheikh Rafi, the head of the tourist service provider 'Traveler of Greater Sylhet', regularly rents cars from UDrivebd.

He said, 'Many tourists want to travel around with their families on their own. This is a good initiative for them. There are such opportunities in foreign countries.'

He said, "The verification process for providing cars to tourists needs to be made easier. Because they come for a short time to visit."

Ismail Hossain, another service user of 'Udrive', said, 'We get this service when we go abroad. But this opportunity was not available in Sylhet until now. My expatriate relatives are very satisfied with renting a car without a driver from Udrive.'